If you’re from a small resource-constrained institution, you may be wondering if Salesforce CRM is a viable option. Come learn how two smaller institutions, Ohio Dominican University and The Seattle School of Theology & Psychology, have successfully transformed their universities to more effectively recruit and enroll more students. Hear how they are using Salesforce CRM to make data driven decisions, execute timely and consistent communications, and provide personalization to inquiries, applicants, accepts, and enrolled students on a thin budget. Learn more about their implementation and results – what worked, what didn’t work, and best practices for sustainable growth.

1. Small Schools Doing Big Things with
Salesforce for Recruiting

2. Fred Lassiter
Chief Information Officer
Ohio Dominican University

3. Small Schools Doing Big Things with Salesforce
for Recruiting
If you’re from a small resource-constrained institution, you may be
wondering if Salesforce CRM is a viable option. Come learn how two
smaller institutions, Ohio Dominican University and The Seattle
School of Theology & Psychology, have successfully transformed
their universities to more effectively recruit and enroll more students.
Fred Lassiter
Chief Information Officer

4. Ohio Dominican University
• ODU is a private Catholic university located in Columbus,
Ohio. Founded in 1911 by the Dominican Sisters of Peace.
• ODU is small, with about 2,000 total students in
undergraduate, graduate, and adult programs.
• We are highly tuition dependent, and about half our
undergraduate students are first generation and Pell grant
eligible.
• More info at www.ohiodominican.edu

5. State of Affairs
• Declining enrollments due to demographics and competition.
• Limited resources, because we’re tuition dependent.
• Frustrations with legacy enterprise system, no real system
for student recruitment.
• How can Information Services be a strategic contributor?

6. Bright Idea!
• We need a CRM solution!
– Improved tools for counselors.
– Better metrics for managers.
– Improved process for applicants.
– More students = more revenue!
• But which one?
– A CRM procurement is often a high risk / high reward project because
CRM’s are expensive to procure and implementations can fail.
– Is Salesforce different?

7. Higher Ed Summit - 2013
• Attended in Detroit last year.
• I was sitting where you are now, thinking….
– Is Salesforce for real?
– Can we do it?
– Will it work for us?

8. What I heard…
• The Good:
– No upfront investment ( low risk / high reward!)
– Professional services available, but NOT required.
• Scary Stuff:
– Many reporting very impressive results…
– Can we replicate those results?
– Do I want to go home making those claims?

9. The “Test Drive”
• We already had the Salesforce licenses.
• Let’s keep this our little secret.
• Let’s login and poke around and see what we think.

10. Implementation
• Started with Graduate Admissions.
– Smallest admissions team on campus.
– Near 100% turnover caused huge training problems with our SIS.
– A cry for help…. From the new Director, who was familiar with
Salesforce.
– We just need a better landing page.

11. Set Expectations
• This will take time given limited resources.
• We will make mistakes, but we’ll fix them.
• It’s a pilot project to learn about CRM.
• Met with GA team once a week.

12. Scavenge Resource – use what you have!
• We “steal” a few hours a week from many team members.
• We got Marketing & PR team onboard from the start.
• We joined the local Salesforce users group.
• Collaboration with other schools.
• Free or low cost partners:
– Eventbrite / Zapier
– Formstack / Authorize.net
– OpenSource Salesforce API library
– CozyRoc ETL tool

13. So… how’d it turn out?
• Graduate hours for next year are up 35%.
• We’ve done the basics… but more to do.
• Beginning implementation for Adult and Continuing Ed.
• Undergrad, President, and Board are getting more interested
by the day!

14. What’s Next?
• Adult and Continuing Education (in progress).
• SIS Import of applications and inquiries.
• Online application status page.
• Undergraduate Admissions?
• Athletic Recruiting?
• University Advancement?

15. The Next Challenge…
• Make the case for additional resources.
• Dashboards / Reporting / KPIs.

16. Demo – Online Graduate Application
• We wanted a custom application that:
– Prospective students could fill out the app online,
– Lookup of CEEB codes for institutions attended,
– Add education, employment, and activities to a custom objects,
– Be consistent with SIS data for ease of import, and
– Convert the LEAD (if there was one) into an Account & Opportunity.
• Built it using open source Salesforce API.
• Variants support International and Adult applicants.
• Test drive at: https://apply.ohiodominican.edu/graduate

21. Jason Best
Director of Media and IT
The Seattle School of Theology & Psychology
@bestmantweets

22. • 1997
Founded as branch campus of Western Seminary
• 2002
Became independent, interdenominational school
Mars Hill Graduate School
• 2011
Adopted new name
The Seattle School of Theology & Psychology
First Last Name
Title

23. • ~300 head count in 3 Masters programs
• ~100 head count in 3 certificate programs
• over 2500 workshop & conference attendees First Last Name
Title

24. Our Start with Salesforce.com
• Fall 2009 Annual Maintenance Renewal notice
• SIS, Fundraising, Accounting
• Financial Development underutilizing current system
• Recording gifts
• Not used for engagement
• Move to engagement required a CRM
• Current vendor too expensive

25. Our Start with Salesforce.com
• Matured NPSP
• (and it keeps getting better)
• 2 month build and migration of all giving records

26. Our Start with Salesforce.com
• Admissions frustrated with limitations of our SIS
• Server-client based
• Inflexible inquiry forms
• Not integrated with communication tools
• Built recruiting and admissions process in 6 months

27. Where we are using Salesforce.com now
• Student Recruitment and Admissions
• Degree
• Certificate
• Workshops
• Certificate Enrollment Management
• Alumni Relations
• Donor Development
• Event Registration
• Volunteer Management

28. Nicole Greenwald
Director of Enrollment Management
The Seattle School of Theology & Psychology

29. Case Study: Phase 1
• 1997 Cohort: History
• The first cohort was recruited via postcards. 78 postcards were sent out.
• We started with a cohort of 62!
•
2006 + 2007 Cohorts: Inciting Incident
• In 2006 one of our founders and core faculty members went on Sabbatical
• 40 students deferred. We had an incoming cohort of 80
• In 2007 we had a huge deferred pool > incoming cohort of 105

30. Case Study: Phase 1
• 2010 Cohort: “The Dream”
• The goal: Grow the INQ pool
• We hit the grad fair circuit. We did more advertising.
• We increased our INQ pool by 42%
• But, we didn’t have
• Conversion strategies in place
• Proactive communications plans
• CRM
• We missed our enrollment goal by 30.3%

31. Case Study: Phase 2
• 2011 Cohort: Rocky Landscape + Building Scaffolding
• Established clear-data driven goals and set targets to help us chart
our course
• Goals that were not based on dreams
• We build our goal on a 6% increase of the 3-year average
• Focused on conversion
• Nurture campaigns allowed us to leverage our relational mission and ethos
• Laid the foundation for a dynamic CRM by building strategy and infrastructure
• Impact & Results
• Increased INQ > APP conversion rate by 7%
• Increased enrollment by 18.5%
• Beat headcount goal by 12 students (14.3%)

32. Case Study: Phase 3
• 2012 Cohort: Owning Our Identity & Building the Machine
• Fully implemented SalesForce
• Built nurture campaigns that embodied our relational mission in our
admissions process and practice
• Having a relational approach provides us with a more holistic engagement (and awareness) of our
prospective students in all levels of the funnel
• Through our relational approach and SF-driven nurture campaigns we not only hit and exceeded our
goals, we began to really connect to our audience and gather some important (reportable) data
• Gaining a greater understanding of who we are and how we are experienced/understood
• Impact & Results
• Exceed enrolled/budget goal by 7%
• Increased INQ > APP conversion rate by 9%
• Increased Apps by 29.2%
• Increased ENR conversion rate by 2% to 71% Lowered Accepted-Withdrawn by 30%
•

33. Case Study: Phase 3
• Increased awareness and provided wrap around support
• Identified consistent themes/struggles post-matriculation and recorded during review
process to use with Student Services and Student Development team
• Attrition in the first year dropped by 50% after implementation
• Retention increased by nearly 10% to 88%
• Streamlined and improved processes
• Making our work more efficient and effective
» Launched online application using Forms Assembly
» App Docs Update Trigger Email
» “Thank you” notes to references
» More efficient management of student employees increased accountability and productivity.
• Increasing user/customer experience
• Over 95% “Excellent/Exceptional” rate in incoming student surveys

34. Application

35. Application

36. Application Document

37. Reference “Thank You” Email

38. Reference “Thank You” Email

39. Case Study: Phase 4
• 2013 & 2014 Cohorts: Honing the Machine
• Reassessment & Recognizing Threats
• We had created internal competitors
• Centralized Degree and Certificate Recruitment & Admissions
• Integrated SF platform allowed us to share contacts instead of poach from each other
• Streamlined communications instead of flooding an inquiry that has multiple interests
• Building a multi-year recruitment cycle
• Used data to create and launch Pathways sites
• Shifting focus from INQ > APP to APP > ACC conversion
• Focused on leveraging word-of-mouth and impact of experience and
relationship
• SF gave us a platform to build relationships and report on the word of mouth/brand
advocate ROI

40. Recruitment Screen

43. Case Study: Phase 4
• Impact & Results
• 2013 Cohort
• Increased Apps by 20% (10% increase over 3 year average)
• Increased ACC > ENR conversion rate by 4% (71% in 2012; 75% in 2013)
• Increased enrolled by 8%
• Exceed enrollment/budget goal by 8%

44. Case Study: Phase 5
• 2014 Cohort – Where we’re headed: Growing and Shaping
• Stewarding Growth
• Shifting from enrollment goals focused primarily on overall growth toward continued growth as well as
program-specific growth (shaping cohorts)
• Increasing conversion rates at all levels of the funnel
• Shifting focus from converting INQ > APP to APP > ACC
• This shift is helping us increase our conversion rate where it matters – ACC > ENR
• Goal for ACC > ENR conversion rate is 70%
» Our YTD ACC > ENR conversion rate is 75%
» Our Deferred conversion rate is up 48% this year (typically around 25%)
» Enrollment is up by 30% YTD

45. What we would do differently
• Start with a campus wide deployment in mind
• More process analysis and re-engineering before building in SF
• Said NO more often

46. What are our pain points?
• Data integrity
• So many entry point, no real “owner”
• Training
• What is possible
• Continuous Process Improvement
• Amount of change requests
• Project Management
• Team of 1

47. What is next
• Complete cradle to grave system of engagment
• Integration with SIS
• Greater audience segmentation
• Communities (evaluating)
• Recruitment
• Alumni
• Donor
• Community

48. Apps used to accomplish our goals
• Click & Pledge
• Online giving
• Events
• CirrusInsight – Google Apps Integration
• Conga Composer – Print Materials
• Vertical Response
• ExactTarget
• DemandTools – Data import/export/cleanup
• FormAssembly

49. Key Resources
• Foundation Office Hours
• Special shout out to Kevin Bromer
• Nonprofit SF Google Group
• Power of Us HUB
• Dreamforce
• Local User Groups
• YouTube

50. Bottom Line
Salesforce has allowed us to move from systems
that simply record what we are doing to system
that enable us to more affectively deliver on our
mission